The Choice by Sindaril

Author:Sindaril
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER FIVE

‘We’re going to die,’ said Nathanien with grim certainty, ‘aren’t we mother?’ He and Lenora were huddled together in the top, left-hand corner of the racketing train-car. The boy could hear the shivers and moans of his fellows – packed together tightly like sardines – as the sharp, cold winds whistled through the holes and cracks. He heard little children weep into their mothers laps while their parent desperately tried to comfort them. Then Nathanien listened out while some of the other tribesmen in the car prayed to the Gods for protection – or at the very least, a swift death. ‘You mustn’t worry, my child,’ Lenora reassured her son.

‘Then where are they taking us?’

‘It’s the selection, that’s all, my darling. It will be over soon.’

‘Selection?’ the young man enquired.

‘It’s nothing to be frightened about,’ the old feline smiled as she stroked her son’s head. ‘You’re a chosen one, you have nothing to fear.’

‘But what about you?’

‘Me?’ Lenora chuckled, ‘I’ve lived through more selections than there have been gifts for the harvesting. Last time there was one, you were so small.’

‘Was this,’ the teenager said with trepidations as his face became downcast, ‘before father died?’

‘Your father did not die, he—’

‘But I saw it,’ Nathanien asserted, ‘the walls showed me, he died by the—’

‘He didn’t, Nathanien. You’re father survived.’ The boy was stuttered while his lower lip quivered as his eyes grew wide. ‘Didn’t the walls show you and Phenora the rest of what happened?’

‘I-I…when I saw the vision, I pulled my paw away from the wall—’

‘Of course,’ Lenora tutted, ‘I forget how impatient the young can be, jumping to conclusions.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Your father was infected by the plague, Nathanien,’ Lenora elucidated, ‘and when I found him by the outer chamber, I thought he was dead! But when I checked his pulse, I was shocked to discover that he was still alive – the Gods had chosen him. I took him back to the healing waters and stayed with him while he recovered. However, not long afterwards the elite arrived—’

‘The elite?’

‘Yes, servants of the empress. They were the ones who collected us.’

‘But why were they so cruel when doing so?’

‘Sin, my boy. The elite cannot stand sin and unfortunately we are stained by it.’

‘If they are the elite,’ Nathanien said with a hint of doubt in his voice, ‘does that mean we’re going to the palace?’

‘No,’ said the old woman as she shook her head, ‘not the palace. It’s better than the palace, far better.’

‘What could be better than the palace?’ Lenora patted her child on the back, her face creased as an even bigger smile drew on her face. ‘We’re going outside!’

*

‘B.E.S. ?’ the Mistress softly mewled while she tossed and turned in her sleep. As she writhed, the woman shook her head. Her face creased with sorrow as she dreamed such terrible dreams. In her mind, she beheld throngs of phantasms. Though they lack precise form, yet the Mistress could vaguely make out hints of what they might have once been – like a flash which lingers long after one has closed their eyes.

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